


we can be pirates

by readtheroomfucko



Category: Dead To Me (TV)
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/F, a little angst as a treat, thirty year time jumps are fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25622602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readtheroomfucko/pseuds/readtheroomfucko
Summary: “She says maybe she’ll come back, she still has boxes to unpack, and Jen can’t stop thinking about maybe while she’s trying to sleep. Maybe, maybe, maybe. She thinks it so many times it doesn’t sound like a real word anymore.”jen and judy meet as kids. very obviously inspired by seven.
Relationships: Judy Hale/Jen Harding
Comments: 17
Kudos: 78





	we can be pirates

**Author's Note:**

> i’ve never written in present tense before so be gentle.

She’s nine the day she meets Judy. Almost ten though, she stresses. She’ll be ten in four months and she’s beaming with pride — almost ten, almost double-digits. It feels big. Her mom sits on the bench reading a thick book and Jen thinks that next year she’ll be reading books just as big. She’s just finished _Tales of a Fourth Grader_. When she goes back to school, she’ll be a fourth grader just like Peter Hatcher and Jimmy Fargo. 

Mrs. Smith chose Jen and her best friend Kate to be lunch monitors for the second graders next year. They’re noisy and small and Jen can’t remember being that tiny, thinks it’s weird that it was only two years ago. She picks up speed on the swingset, kicking her legs hard, and she thinks about the second graders and their little kid books. Jen’s writing a story about pirates in her diary. Girl pirates who go on adventures and fight boys with swords.

She’s still thinking about pirates when a girl approaches her. She’s younger than Jen. A _little_ kid with scuffs in the knees of her jeans and frizzy brown hair pulled back into two messy braids. Jen closes her eyes and swings higher.

“Jenny!” her mom calls from the bench and Jen frowns. She doesn’t want to be called Jenny anymore. “Are you gonna say hi?”

Jen looks over to her mom and sees another lady standing next to her. The lady looks like her aunt, sort of, but not really. Auntie Sarah is a dancer. Jen wants to see her dance but her mom says she only dances for adults. She wears ripped jeans and leather jackets like the lady talking to her mom. Jen thinks it’s cool, but her mom doesn’t let her wear clothes with tears in them. 

She turns back to the girl in front of her. “Hi,” she says, then snaps her bubblegum. 

The girl smiles, “I’m Judy. Can I swing with you?”

“Got any gum?” Jen asks, “I just finished my pack.”

Judy fumbles around in her pockets before pulling out a pack of Hubba Bubba and Jen digs her sneakers into the gravel to stop the swing. She hops off and walks over to Judy, spitting out her slimy old gum and replacing it with a piece from Judy’s pack. 

“I’m Jen,” she smiles, “You’re little, I bet I can go higher than you.”

It’s a bit mean, but Jen’s not trying to be mean — not really. Kate’s on vacation with her family and Jen’s getting bored of going to the park alone. She likes writing her stories, but she doesn’t have anybody to read them to. Her dad’s always working late and her mom says she’s tired. Too tired to hear about pirates. 

Judy just laughs and shoves the pack of gum back in her pocket, “I had a swing at my old house. I know how to go high.”

They swing together and it’s nice. Judy’s funny in a dorky way. She doesn’t write but she paints pictures and the cool lady by the bench is her mom. Judy says her mom does _business things_ and Jen doesn’t know what that means, but it sounds smart. Jen doesn’t know a lot about grown-up jobs. Her dad is a lawyer and her mom works in the office at her school. Her dad’s kind of like a superhero, she thinks. He puts bad guys in jail so they can’t hurt people anymore. 

She tells Judy this and Judy frowns. She says not everybody who goes to jail is a bad guy, but Jen doesn’t think that’s true. 

When Judy’s mom tells her it’s time to go home, Jen jumps off the swing and runs after her, grabbing her arm. She tells her to come back tomorrow, that Judy’s kinda cool, only kinda, and they should hang out. Judy smiles so big it looks like it hurts. She says maybe she’ll come back, she still has boxes to unpack, and Jen can’t stop thinking about maybe while she’s trying to sleep. _Maybe, maybe, maybe_. She thinks it so many times it doesn’t sound like a real word anymore.

Judy does come back and they see eachother every day, mostly. Judy comes for dinner sometimes and Jen’s mom likes her better than Kate because she always offers to help with the dishes. Judy’s not a little kid, Jen finds out; she’s ten already because she has an early birthday and when they go back to school Judy’s in her fourth grade class with Mrs. Smith. 

Kate’s not allowed to hang out with Judy outside of school. Her mom says Judy comes from a bad home, but Jen knows it’s not true. Eleanor is always nice to Jen when she bikes over to see Judy — she even tells her not to call her Mrs. Hale, which Jen thinks is super cool. She acts like a teenager, sort of, and Jen wishes _her_ mom was cool like Eleanor. They never stay at Judy’s house, but that’s just because Eleanor’s really busy with her business work. She works late and isn’t home on the weekends like Jen’s dad, so Jen understands. 

Judy paints pictures for Jen’s pirate stories and buys her a real book for her tenth birthday with thick white pages and a hard black cover. Jen writes them out first in her neatest cursive and then lets Judy paint pirate girls with peg legs and big hats underneath her words. 

Sometimes they go into the forest and pretend they’re pirates with sticks for swords and Jen always saves Judy in the end. They both know it’s a stupid game but it’s okay because they don’t tell anybody. It’s fun and it’s just for them. 

She feels bad for spending so much time with Judy because Kate’s been her best friend since kindergarten, but Kate’s different now. Kate has a boyfriend and they hold hands at recess and Jen thinks it’s gross. Judy’s one of the prettiest girls in their grade, but she tells Jen one night that she doesn’t want a boyfriend, maybe not ever. Boys are stupid. Jen thinks boys are stupid too. 

A year later she’s sitting on her front lawn listening to music on her mom’s stereo and waiting for Judy to hurry up so they can head to the mall to meet up with Kate and Andrew. A million breakups later, they’re still together and Kate’s started lying to her mom when she hangs out with Judy. None of them go to the park anymore; Jen’s eleven now and everything feels so different. 

Her dad doesn’t live with them now. She overhears her mom telling Auntie Sarah that the divorce isn’t finalized, but Jen hasn’t seen him in months so it feels pretty final. Judy’s dad left when she was a baby and it’s funny in a sad way, their little club that nobody would ever want to join. They write a dumb comic about their dads teaming up to take over the world together and Judy draws them both with shiny bald heads and big, crooked teeth. Judy calls it Super Loser Dads and Jen laughs in the moment, but she cries that night because her dad’s not a superhero, he’s just an asshole who cheated with his secretary. Her mom’s tired all the time now and Jen tries to help out as much as she can, but she misses being a kid sometimes. She doesn’t feel like a kid anymore. 

Nothing feels out of the ordinary when Judy comes running up her street. Jen thinks she probably just feels bad for being late — Judy’s always feeling guilty about something as if she isn’t the nicest person in their whole school.

“Jen!” Judy screams and it’s not a happy scream, it’s choked-off and hopeless. That’s when Jen notices her bloodshot eyes and the angry red mark on her cheek.

She turns off the music and runs over, “Holy shit, Judy,” she brings a careful hand to Judy’s cheek, “What happened to you?”

Judy’s crying so hard she can barely talk and Jen doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do. She’s never seen Judy cry before. 

“I’m moving,” Judy chokes out. 

“What do you mean?” Jen’s in a daze. Moving to another house in the neighbourhood, maybe? It would be stupid to cry over that, though, and Judy isn’t stupid. 

Jen hears the roar of an old car engine and suddenly Eleanor is parked at her curb. Judy grabs Jen, pulling her into a suffocating hug and sobbing into her shoulder. 

“I should have told you everything,” she whispers through hiccuping sobs, “I’m sorry, Jen. I love you so much.”

“No,” Jen feels tears prickling in her eyes and her voice sounds shrill in her ears, “Stay with me, okay? My mom loves it when you’re around. We can go ask her right now and I can get a bunk bed and —“

Judy pulls back. She’s not crying anymore but her lips quiver when she tries to smile, “Maybe I’ll come back someday.”

Jen thinks about the day they met. _Maybe._

She kisses Jen’s cheek and Jen feels something snap inside of her, but she doesn’t have time to think because Eleanor’s out of the car and she’s dragging Judy away. Jen remembers all of the times Judy came to school with bruised arms, blaming the marks on clumsiness, and she doesn’t care if the whole cul-de-sac hears her when she screams at Eleanor, screams for her mom to come out of the kitchen and help.

She cries herself to sleep that night and thinks about maybe. 

Judy doesn’t come back. 

* * *

Jen slams her palm against the steering wheel, fuming. She doesn’t want to go to a fucking grief group. It’s bad enough being reminded of Ted’s death every time she goes to work or picks up the kids from school — the pitiful looks, the empty offers of _if there’s anything I can do, just let me know_ from perfect fucking strangers. The last thing she wants to do is sit in a circle with a bunch of people who are just as miserable as she is and wallow in it, but of course Lorna had given her a fucking ultimatum. Grief group or anger management. Her anger is inconvenient, apparently. Bad for business. 

She wipes the tears from her cheeks and steps out, smoothing her blazer and pulling herself together. Actually speaking in the meeting wasn’t explicitly required, so Jen decides she won’t say anything beyond a polite introduction. She’ll sit and count the minutes until it’s over for as long as it takes to get Lorna off her back. She’ll stop snapping at potential buyers — even the ones who try her patience by waffling over whether it’s the right time to buy (it’s not, but _fuck_ everyone who already knows that and wastes her time). 

She skips the coffee and makes a beeline for the last empty seat in the circle. With a grimace, she realizes that this is a religious group, _Friends of Heaven_ , and she curses Lorna’s tireless commitment to adding insult to injury. The pastor talks about his aunt’s death, about watching her bleed out on the floor, and she thinks about the kid that found Ted’s body. Henry’s age and probably traumatized for life. _Yeah_ , this group is fucking terrible for her. 

“Well, looks like we have some new people here,” the pastor announces in a voice that seems too cheery for the occasion, “Is there anything either of you would like to share with the group?”

 _No_ , Jen thinks, but it feels impolite not to give a cursory introduction. Hi, my husband’s dead. 

“Hi, I’m Jen,” she says, hoping her tone isn’t as clipped as it feels, “I lost my husband three months ago. Hit and run.”

“I’m so sorry,” a soft voice replies and Jen’s about to snap back that the only apology she needs is from the bastard who hit him when she sees her face. She doesn’t know why they seem so familiar, but she remembers her eyes like something out of a dream. Foggy and distorted. 

“Have we met?” Jen asks, her brow furrowing.

“I don’t think so,” the woman replies, her voice lilting in question, “I’m Judy. I lost my mom last month and it’s been… complicated. We had a difficult relationship.”

That’s when it hits her. Park playgrounds, pirates with stick swords, cartoon dads with too-big teeth, brown eyes illuminated by the beam of a flashlight under a blanket fort in Jen’s childhood bedroom. _Judy_. 

Jen’s jaw goes slack and suddenly Judy’s eyes are blown wide. 

“Oh my God,” Judy breathes, raising a hand to her mouth in shock. 

“Do you still, um, paint?” is the first thing Jen can think to ask. It’s a stupid question, but what’s she supposed to say?

Judy laughs and it’s loud and out of place, “Are you down to give the fans a sequel to Super Loser Dads?”

“How do you remember that?” she gawks and Judy just smiles. Breezy and content. Jen almost forgets they’re in the middle of a fucking grief group. 

“ _I_ kept the sketchbook. Sorry about that, by the way. I know I’m like, thirty years late on that apology but um,” she lets out a breathless laugh, “Sorry. How do _you_ remember?”

Jen doesn’t know, really. It’s been thirty years for fuck sake, but she _does_ remember. She remembers crying for weeks after Judy left, waiting for her to come back. She remembers thinking maybe until it didn’t sound like a real word anymore. 

Someone clears their throat, “Do you two, uh… know eachother?” 

Before Jen can reply, Judy’s grabbing her hand, muttering apologies to the pastor and fellow grievers as she leads Jen away from the circle. 

“Okay,” she narrows her eyes, her smile a little conspiratorial, “This might be a little presumptuous, but do you wanna get out of here?”

Jen agrees, the easiest decision she’s ever made (fuck Lorna, she’ll make up for it next week), and then Judy’s on the couch on her back patio with her legs curled under her and a glass of chardonnay in her hand. Judy’s different now, _thirty years different_ , but it feels the same somehow. 

They talk about the past — the things Jen was too young to understand back then. Eleanor’s abuse, the drugs, and the reason her mom was always tired. She tells Judy that her mom lost her battle with breast cancer eight years after Judy left and how hard it was at the end. It means something, somehow, to know that somebody other than Jen remembers her.

When one glass of wine becomes four, Judy lays across her lap, a throw pillow under her head. 

“Wanna hear something dumb?” she asks, a pink flush settling over her cheeks. 

Jen scoffs, “Obviously.”

“When we were kids,” she starts, biting her lip, “I was like, stupidly in love with you.”

Jen raises an eyebrow, “Really?”

“Oh _God_ , yes. I remember we’d play that pirates game in the forest by your house and I would always be the damsel in distress so you’d have to save me at the end,” she chuckles, shaking her head, “What a little charmer, right?”

“I thought you were very cute,” Jen says. She’s not sure why she’s blushing.

Judy gasps theatrically, bringing her hand to her chest, “Be still my ten year old heart.”

“You’re still very cute,” she says, taking a sip of her wine, and Judy looks up at her, her lips quirking into a smirk. 

“Cute like a child or…”

“No,” Jen lets out a breathless laugh, “Not cute like a child, Judy.”

“You know,” she drawls, sitting up, “There’s something I always wanted to do.”

“What’s that?” Jen asks, but from the look in Judy’s eyes, she thinks she knows. 

Judy tucks a strand of hair behind Jen’s ear, fingers coming to rest underneath her chin. “Is this okay?” she asks, her voice low and smooth. 

“Yeah,” Jen whispers and Judy closes the distance, connecting their lips. It’s slow, soft, and sweet and Jen smiles into it, setting down her wine glass and allowing her hands to settle on Judy’s waist. Judy’s lips taste like wine and her perfume is earthy and light. Jen remembers the forest. 

When she pulls away, Judy’s grinning. 

“So…” she schools her features in mock austerity, “Wanna grab dinner on the weekend? Or, you know, we could play pirates.”

Jen laughs and for the first time in three months it’s genuine, “Maybe just dinner.”

That night, Jen lays in bed and thinks about pirates — about time and second chances. She thinks about Ted and her mom and it aches like a gnawing pit in her chest, but she still has Charlie and Henry. She still has time. 

Judy came back. 

  
  



End file.
